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The Bravais is a large ship with good but slow starting weaponry and good starting crew. It starts with a crew of two Humans and two Crystals. It is equipped with a Crystal Burst I and a Heavy Crystal I.

The Bravais is widely considered the most diffcult ship to unlock in FTL.

For the first step, you must visit a distress call beacon in an Engi-controlled, Rock-controlled, or Pirate-controlled sector. Both Engi Homewords and Rock Homeworlds are eligible as well. The event will feature exploration of an asteroid belt. If you choose to search the belt, you will most likely find nothing and take hull damage. However, you have a 33% chance of finding a derelict ship. You will get the option of taking a weapon and scrap, or taking a stasis pod. You must take the stasis pod for the quest. If you have the Rock Plating augment (most often by flying one of the Rock Cruisers), you will get a blue option that has a 100% chance of getting the good outcome.

Secondly, you must visit an Engi or Zoltan-controlled sector. Engi and Zoltan Homeworlds are ok as well. You must then find a regular beacon that features a Zoltan research facility. If you have the Stasis Chamber, you will get a blue option to unlock it. A Crystal crew member will join your crew. If you are in an Engi sector, you can find and open the pod in the same sector, but if you have already visited the research facility before you find the pod, they will not open it. You will have to visit another sector and try again. Very rarely, there will be two research facilities in the same sector, but this cannot be relied upon.

Thirdly, you must visit a Rock Homeworlds sector. It is very possible your game does not contain a Rock Homeworlds, or you may have missed it by heading down another branch path. There is no way to tell before getting there. However, if by chance you do get to the Rock Homeworlds, you must then find a beacon with a quest marker which features an Ancient Gate. Your Crystal crew member will use the gate to teleport to the Hidden Crystal Sector.

Finally, you must survive to get to the quest beacon in the Crystal sector. The Rock Cruiser, Long-Range Sensors, and lots of patience will be your best allies on this endeavor. Good luck!

There is only one room between the medbay and the room that can be upgraded with a teleporter pad, allowing boarding crew to heal up quickly and get back in the teleporter before it finishes charging (if the medbay is sufficiently upgraded).

Crystal crew's lockdown power makes assassinating individual enemy crew members very easy, which is especially helpful against the Rebel Flagship.

Despite the unusual layout and weaponry, the Bravais has very standard priorities. Your first goal is Shields level 2, followed by Engines 3 or 4. After this, decide how you want to play. The Crystal weapons are very strong early on, but their slow reload time means they should be supplemented by other weapons as soon as possible. Against ships with one shield layer, simply focus the weapons room until the ship is destroyed, due to the shield piercing aspect of the Crystal Weapons. This will get you through the first two sectors without difficulty. By the time you start to face 2 shield ships, you should either have a third weapon or be ready to start boarding.

Investing in a teleporter is a wise decision due to the strength of Crystal crewmembers. Simply teleport a boarding team with at least one Crystal crew member (and preferrably a Mantis, Rock, or another Crystal) into a room with a single enemy crew member in it and lock the room down before either anyone else gets into the room to help him or he escapes to a medbay. Alternatively, you can teleport into the medbay itself and disable it immediately. A third option is to lock down the enemy weapons or shields room and disable that, leaving your weapons to do damage to other systems.
If you do decide to board, you may want to sell the Crystal Vengeance augment so a stray hit doesn't destroy the enemy ship with your crew on it. With any strategy, a Defense Drone I is a good goal due to how much scrap you will save in the long run.

Against the boss, boarding remains a solid strategy. Use a Crystal, paired with another good boarding race, preferably Mantis, to wipe out all but one of the crew (sparing the guy in the triple laser) one-by-one. Be very, very mindful of the cloak, however. Bad timing on your part could cost you your boarding crew. The Flagship cloaks for 15 seconds, and then waits 20 seconds for the cloak to recharge. You should either try to be in and out before the Flagship's cloak recharges, or else teleport your crew in right before it cloaks (wait for it to uncloak and count off 18 seconds or so) and teleport them out afterward.

Just remember that the Bravais needs all the things a normal ship will need throughout the game. It will just be easier to play. Don't forget to look for a Rock Homeworlds sector so you can visit the Crystal sector easily!

Sweet Revenge: Destroy a enemy ship with a shard from the Crystal Vengeance augment (unique to the Crystal Cruiser). Find an unshielded Auto-Scout, reduce it to 1 HP, and then turn your shields off and take damage until your ship fires back.

No Escape: While using the Crystal Cruiser, trap 4 enemy crew members in a single room using the Crystal Being or a Lockdown Bomb.

Clash of the Titans Destroy 15 Rock Ships (Pirates Count) using the Crystal Cruiser. Obviously, the best way to unlock this is to find Rock sectors and simply get in as many fights as possible.